Resources for Your Event

Additional support we can provide

Press releases, interviews, and op-eds for your local paper. Contact Rachel Quednau at quednau@strongtowns.org if you are interested in this.

Follow-up events in your area or region. Contact Michelle Erfurt at michelle@strongtowns.org if you are interested in this.

Presentation Descriptions:

+ Curbside Chat

The Curbside Chat is a presentation followed by a community-specific discussion about the financial health of our places.

• Why are our cities and towns so short of resources despite decades of robust growth?• Why do we struggle at the local level just to maintain our basic infrastructure?• What do we do now that the economy has changed so dramatically?

The answers lie in the way we have developed; the financial productivity of our places. This stunning presentation is a game-changer for communities looking to grow more resilient and obtain true prosperity during changing times.

Topics covered include: America's Suburban Experiment; the Growth Ponzi Scheme; the illusion of wealth; mechanisms of growth; and incremental and traditional development models.

+ Transportation in the Next American City

For more than six decades, local governments have been accustomed to building new transportation infrastructure, expanding existing systems in addition to constructing completely new facilities. While liabilities have grown, transportation funding has not kept up. Now there is a desperate need for local governments to shift from building to maintaining, from an approach that emphasizes expansion to one where we mature our use of existing investments. In difficult economic times, this is a scary, but necessary, realignment.

Topics Covered: centralization vs. local decisionmaking; roads, streets and stroads; congestion and safety; the role of state and federal funding; transit; walkability; and bike options.

+ Neighborhoods First

Risky, low returning projects too often become expensive boondoggles that haunt a community for decades. Public officials everywhere are desperately seeking an alternative. This talk will cover the "Neighborhoods First" approach to show how a community can grow stronger by making small, incremental investments over time. By observing how neighbors live their lives, by asking them where their daily struggles are, by getting out on the street and discovering what is actually going on, any local government can discern what their community’s pressing needs are. These projects are the high return investments and they are all around us.

+ Walking Tour

During a Charles Marohn led walking tour, attendees learn Strong Town principles as they apply to their immediate area. Participants discover how to view their neighborhood through the Strong Towns perspective while identifying current challenges and discussing possible solutions to their built environment. The walking tour is a way for attendees to see the bridge between topics shared in our Curbside Chat lecture in the local context.